The present invention relates to electrical power management of available electrical power for recharging internal batteries used with a plurality of battery-powered computers.
Wireless computer networks are used in many applications, such as educational, commercial and industrial environments. A typical, basic wireless computer network consists of a server-computer and a plurality of battery-powered client-computers that all communicate via a wireless radio communication link with the server-computer through an air port antenna. The communications may be direct between a client-computer and server-computer, or between a client-computer and network access hardware that communicates with the server-computer. Typically, the client-computers are laptop or notebook style computers and are powered solely from internal rechargeable batteries. An advantage of the wireless computer network is that the portable computers can be moved about while in use without being tethered by power or data cables, as long as the portable computer is within communication range of the server-computer and is powered by a sufficiently charged battery.
Eventually, the batteries in the portable computers will need to be recharged. Depending upon the application environment, this may result in a large number of portable computers being recharged at one time. For example, in a secondary school application, a classroom populated with thirty portable computers that are used by the students during the day will all be recharged at the end of the school day. The number of portable computers that will be recharged quickly multiplies when numerous classrooms in a school utilize wireless computer networks. Thus, the power burden on the school""s electrical system can be substantial when recharging commences.
In many existing buildings, the electrical distribution systems are not designed to support these significant clustered power requirements that generally occur as a result of this technology. Therefore, substantial modifications to the building""s electrical distribution system are required to accommodate the clustered recharging of the batteries. Failure to properly modify the building""s electrical distribution system for the recharging process can result in the tripping of circuit breakers due to circuit overloads, or can lead to potential electrical fire hazards.
For new construction, the building""s electrical distribution system could be oversized to accommodate the clustered recharging of the batteries. However there are favorably time periods during a day, for example evening and early morning hours that can support recharging of the batteries without the additional construction expense of an oversized electrical system. The problem is effectively utilizing these favorably time periods for battery charging.
Therefore, there exists the need for relatively inexpensive electrical power management apparatus and method for recharging a plurality of multiple battery-powered computers.
In one aspect, the invention is an apparatus and a method for recharging batteries used with a plurality of multiple battery-powered computers wherein the recharging process is managed on the basis of available electrical power capacity for recharging; the number of batteries to be recharged; and the time available for recharging the batteries.
These and other aspects of the invention will be apparent from the following description and the appended claims.